During
the Ottoman rule over Bulgaria, the Chief Rabbi of Adrianople (Edirne)
was also that of Bulgaria. With the independence in 1878, the Bulgarian
Jewish communities remained without any supreme rabbinical institution.
The local government considered the Chief Rabbi of Sofia
and its surroundings, then Rab. Gabriel Almosnino, as the legal representative
of the Bulgarian Jews.

Fig.
1. Map of Modern Bulgaria demonstrating the proximity of the Turkish
Republic and Greece

Only
in 1880, Rab. Gabriel Almosnino was officially nominated Chief Rabbi
of Bulgaria. The Great Rabbinate was in fact a one-man institution representing
the whole Jewish community. In 1884 the Central Consortium of the Bulgarian
Jews was created in order to manage the local Jewish affairs and to
serve as an administrative body to the Chief Rabbi.

Fig
2.The Great Synagogue" (Sephardic rite)

Here
is the chronological list of the Bulgarian Chief Rabbis from 1880 till
1949, when 45,000 out of 50,000 Jews immigrated to Israel. Most of the
Jews who remained, lived in Sofia, some in
Plovdiv while all the other communities just disappeared. In the post-war
communist context, the Chief Rabbinate and the Central Consortium were
dissolved. A Cultural and Educational Organization of the Jews of Bulgaria
took their place and is functioning till today, while Sofia and Plovdiv
communities have each one its own Rabbi..

Fig
4. Rabbi ben Abraham David Pipano 1851 - 1925, formerly Chief
Sofia Rabbi 1920 -1925 ( Salonica-1891-?) Author of Hagor ha-Efod
(1925) and other books. He served as the head of the rabbinical
court of Sofia.